“You know, I used to think all augurs were inhuman, after they took my daughter. Or separate from human, at least. Augur Clari is constantly trying to convince me to abandon Shalla, to catch me in a missed payment and yank her away from me permanently.”
“I grew up in a temple,” Yorbel said. “The augurs were kind to me.”
Tamra snorted. “Did they love you?”
“I believe they did, in their way.”
“Unconditionally?”
“I . . .”
“Or would they have kicked you out if you’d failed their lessons?” She nodded at the tent behind them. “Raia was in augur training, enrolled at the temple. Like all the others, she was forced to train at the temple, no choice in her future. And then, after she’d accepted her fate, they determined she wasn’t right for it. They spit her out, taking her choice away a second time. Seems to me that’s the opposite of unconditional love.”
He didn’t argue with her on that. But he did say, “The empire needs augurs.”
“Does it?” Tamra dared. It wasn’t a question she’d ever voiced out loud, much less one she ever expected to say to an actual augur. She’d seen the way the augurs reminded people of their better selves—without them, it was said, the empire would dissolve into chaos. Would it really, though? “Does it truly benefit people to know what their soul will become? What does it matter? Shouldn’t they just be good people because they love their family and they care about the people around them? People should be good because it’s right, not because an augur tells them it’s what they should do.”
He was silent.
“It’s not as if we carry our memories into our new life, at least not reliably,” Tamra said. “So I’ll be a fish. Or a bird. Or a cricket. Or whatever. Does it matter, so long as I’ve done the best I can?”
“You truly feel this way?”
He sounded stunned, as if no one had ever questioned the entire purpose of his life’s work before, which she supposed was most likely the case. She wondered if she should apologize.
But why should I apologize when it’s what I believe?
“I used to believe I had to do something extraordinary to make my life worthwhile,” Tamra said. “Now I only want Shalla, and more recently Raia, to have a chance at happy lives.”
“But your next life . . .”
“Death erases all we are and all we were. So the past and the future? They don’t matter as much as what you do in the moment. In every moment.” She grinned at him. “It’s okay if you don’t agree. I’m not the one who spent hours in contemplation of ancient ethics texts.”
“You are, I’m told, the one who can control multiple kehoks at once,” Yorbel said. “I heard the rumors on the way in. It’s an unusual talent.”
She shrugged. It was a useless talent for a rider—you could race only one kehok at a time—but pretty handy for a trainer when there were multiple kehoks acting up. “It’s just being stubborn.”
“I believe it’s linked to your whole philosophy of life,” Yorbel said seriously. “You are somehow able to let go of the past and future and focus on the present. You don’t merely pay lip service to the idea of making the most of each moment. You inhabit the moment fully, and the kehoks respond to that. Amazing.”
She laughed. “I haven’t been called ‘amazing’ in a very long time. And certainly never by an augur. Either this is a sign that I’m doing things very right . . . or you’re doing things very wrong.”
“Very right,” he insisted.
Certainly, there were two things she knew she’d done right.
One of them was many miles away, but the other was right here, asleep in a tent near her beloved monster.
Yorbel returned to the temple with no clear idea of what he thought or felt about anything anymore. The sky could be green, the sands purple, and the river red, for all I can tell, he thought. And that’s fine. Everything’s fine. Better than fine. Because at last he knew why he kept being drawn back to the races, why he was able to so easily swallow the lies that entailed, why he was inexplicably happy despite all the fear and worry he should be feeling:
Tamra.
She was amazing.
He hummed to himself as he walked through the familiar stone corridors. Nodding to augurs as he passed, he climbed the stairs to his room. He was still smiling as he opened his